On Thursday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Last Call,” host Brian Sullivan pointed out that the ruling against the Biden administration’s tech censorship efforts also prevents future Republican administrations from censoring and wondered whether those who praise the Biden administration’s censorship efforts would want the same power wielded by the GOP. Sullivan also noted that the government can easily use such power to suppress the truth and wondered if people would have wanted President Richard Nixon to censor information that ran counter to his false claims about U.S. operations in Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War.
Sullivan said, “This is what stuck out to me in that 155-page ruling, it’s what the judge described as fear of retaliation by the government if these companies didn’t comply. … [T]he judge wrote this, ‘Plaintiffs argue that defendants have threatened’ — meaning the government — ‘have threatened adverse consequences to social-media companies, such as reform of Section 230 immunity … , antitrust scrutiny[/enforcement], increased regulations, and other measures, if those companies refuse to increase censorship.’ To me, that was the massive takeaway, because I’m thinking, my God, you can disagree with Twitter and Musk all you want, but picture this: Let’s say a Republican wins in ’24, Republicans take the Senate, now they have full control, there’s something bad and dangerous happening, and they call up Twitter or Threads and say, you know what? Suppress that information. People have to flip the script here. If that’s true, that the government may be threatening these companies with effectively shutting parts of them down, that’s something.”
He added, “Well, and everybody is so focused on COVID, obviously. … Everybody’s focused on that aspect, because that was the standing, effectively, that’s what brought this case, and I get that. But, to my point, think about basic history. Nixon lied, we’re not dropping bombs in Cambodia. What are you talking [about]? There [are] no American troops in Laos or Cambodia. We’re not bombing those areas, when we all know — we learned later that, certainly, we were. And I just — you have to flip the script, I think, and say, what if this was true on the other side?”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
